OLIVE OIL in PROVENCE

Over the last 18 months I've learnt so much about olive oil - how it's produced, the difference in production in different countries and the brands that make, market and sell it. This all started with my trip to Tuscany at the end of 2015, and continued when I went to Provence at the end of last year to spend time with Olivence - the Provence Olive Oil Society which looks after five of the top olive oil producers in France. While Provence is better known for its grape growing and wine production, there are actually around 100 olive varieties grown throughout the region and the area produces some of the world's rarest and most unique types of olive oil. The five premium olive oil brands that make up Olivence have come together to push a campaign to introduce their olive oils to the UK market, and to keep the olive growing traditions of Provence alive for future generations. All five of the brands create their olive oils on small scale production, with many of them still harvesting by hand and following traditional farming and production techniques.

Our trip started with a visit to Vignolis, who are actually just outside Provence, in Rhone, in the gorgeous village of Vieux Nyons. They grow their own olives and make oil from their own harvest as well as other local farmers' harvests, producing 50% of PDO Nyons olive oil and olives. We had a wonderful olive based lunch (olive stuffed lamb, olive bread with tapenade, an olive ratatouille, spelt salad with olives and veggies) with the owners of Vignolis before touring their olive oil museum and factory, then tasting their olive oils, olives and wines.  

After a quick decamp to our beautiful hotel for the night - Le Mas St Joseph a St Remy de Provence - it was time to go over the mountain to the next producer we were visiting, Moulin Castelas. 

At Castelas we had a full tour of the quite tiny production plant on the grove. Again, a lot of their business is producing oils for other farmers, but their star product is their flavoured oils. Unlike other producers who add an essence post production, Castelas add the flavouring ingredient fresh at the beginning, with the olives - van loads of rosemary and thyme, kilos of fresh ginger, whole huge lemons etc. I've never tasted a flavoured oil as good as theirs. 

After our tour of the production unit we had dinner cooked for us by a private chef in the chateau, with all the courses based around olives and olive oil. 

The next morning we went to Cornille, in the heart of the PDO Vallee des Baux de Provence, where they produce 50% of France's "fruite noir" - an oil that's produced exclusively in France and which I hadn't tried before. It's made using slightly fermented olives so has a totally unique taste. Regular olive oil uses the olives straight from harvest so they're in the mill within hours of being picked, whereas the olives in fruite noir are left in their plastic picking boxes for several days before being turned into oil, giving it an intense, fruity flavour, and making it ideal for use as a condiment rather than a cooking fat. We visited their original 17th century mill and the newer factory where the oil is now made in order to deliver the quantities now required. 

Then it was off to a "picnic lunch" in olive groves at family run La Lieutenante. Apart from it wasn't exactly a picnic.... they'd had a caterer prepare a wonderful lunch that we ate with glasses of wine and bowls full of olives in the middle of the groves on a white cloth topped table! There were tartares, ceviches, perfectly cooked fish, excellent bread, yummy salads.... all in the middle of their beautiful groves, that they are currently converting to organic. We wandered the lines of olive trees and watched them harvest the olives. It was fascinating see the very traditional manual techniques they still use!

It was brilliant seeing the field to fork process of how olive oil is made. The peak time for harvesting olives to make oil from is November to January as they need to be less ripe than those designated for eating, which are harvested January onwards. All the groves still either use a manual raking technique to get the olives from the trees, or electric or tractor shakers that gently shake the olives from the branches of the olive trees onto nets below, where they're gathered up and sent to the mills. When they arrive at the mills (if they're not for fruite noir oil) the olives are immediately separated from any leaves, twigs and stems that have been picked with them and then thoroughly washed. The whole olives are then crushed and ground into a paste which looks a bit like tapenade, but you wouldn't want to eat it - not only does it contain the crushed pips but the watery liquid in olives is extremely bitter. So next the oil is extracted from the pulp - firstly using water and a little heat, though not enough that it is no longer deemed cold pressed, then the pulp is centrifuged where the liquids (water and oil) are spun off to later be separated from each other. All the oils we tasted in Provence are extra-virgin olive oils, which means they've been mechanically rather than chemically processed, otherwise known as cold pressing. It takes a massive 5kg of olives to make 1 litre of extra-virgin olive oil. It's advisable to always use virgin olive oils as they contain many more natural vitamins and minerals than refined oils. 

Olivence's oils are available to buy in London and the UK at Fortnum and Mason, Harvey Nichols, Waitrose, Partridges, Wholefoods, Tokes Food and Drink, and Cheese at Leadenhall, and I really recommend seeking them out so you try them and taste the difference in quality to regular olive oils. It's amazing that the UK is the second largest consumer market for olive oils, so it's no surprise to now see them high end oils on our shelves here too. 

I'll be writing a separate post about the wonderful restaurant meals we had in Provence where we sampled menus designed to show off the oils to their maximum potential, so check back for that later this week.